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Historic meeting between CIG and trade union and workers’ organisations

The importance of the formation of the CIG (Concejo Indígena de Gobierno – Indigenous Council of Government) and the campaign of its spokesperson, Marichuy, to register as an independent presidential candidacy goes beyond an electoral campaign. [1]

It amounts to a taking of position which is not limited to elections and it is not really an electoral campaign, but a political alternative faced with the deep (and hopefully terminal) crisis of the Mexican political regime.

The decomposition and crisis of the current political regime has no precedent and is the culmination of six years marked by illegitimacy since the “Yo soy 132” movement, with the campaign for the Ayotzinapa 43 and the persistent cries of “Fuera Peña” and “Fue el Estado”. [2] The crisis is reflected in the crisis of legitimacy of the political-electoral system, its institutions and all the legal political parties, as well as in the absence of legitimacy of the institutions of justice. The crisis is expressed on the political-electoral terrain because of the lack of credibility and discrediting of all the political parties.

The opportunism and the scandalous agreements made by all the parties to try to maintain control of the state apparatus are revealing. It is not by chance that they all seek alliances and coalitions among themselves to try to save the functioning of the system. The greatest example is the candidacy of José Antonio Meade for the PRI, representative of the neoliberal oligarchy whose merit is to have served equally governments of the PRI and the PAN. But the other parties also make alliances with various sectors of the ruling class that are divided by conflicting interests and lack of a compass, allowing them to assure the continuation of capitalist domination, especially with the arrival of Trump as US President.

That is why the CIG proposal for the independent candidacy of Marichuy, although it seeks legal registration by gathering the required signatures, is an anti-system campaign against the electoral setup itself. That’s why Marichuy says “I do not look for votes, I want everything”. The slander by followers of AMLO who argue that Marichuy will take away votes from the Morena party does not understand that our campaign does not seek votes to arrive in government (and make the demagogic promise that if they vote for us, everything is solved) but seeks to end the political system and its current crisis and decomposition. [3]

The campaign to obtain a million signatures for the registration of Marichuy as an independent candidate also takes place in the context of that crisis. Because of the discredit of the current parties, they themselves approved the creation of the legal status of “independent candidacy” to try to re-legitimize the electoral process, but at the same time putting conditions which were impossible to fulfil from a truly independent alternative such as Marichuy (who cannot count on the support of various sectors of certain parties like El Bronco, Margarita Zavala or Ríos Piter). From the beginning Marichuy has denounced the classist, anti-democratic, racist and misogynist character of the procedure for the registration of her candidacy.

It should not be forgotten that Marichuy’s candidacy goes beyond an electoral campaign. We have collected the signatures while denouncing the undemocratic character of the system. But the struggle that the candidacy of Marichuy represents should, we think, continue with signatures or without signatures, with registration or without registration. Because it is a campaign to fight against the political system as a whole. It must be maintained, even without registration, so as to offer an alternative to the crisis of the regime, but outside the regime and not to strengthen it - that is what the CIG potentially represents. Morena’s campaign, on the other hand, seeks to re-legitimate the electoral political system, generating illusions about the possibilities of a change of government only by voting in July. The campaign of Marichuy and the CIG (and all the forces that support it) must continue to denounce the undemocratic nature of the system, especially in the face of the imminent electoral fraud that will be carried out to impose the candidate of the PRI.

And the CIG represents an anti-capitalist option in the midst of the crisis. It proposes that its spokesperson as an independent candidate, saying that it is not looking for votes and faced with the coming fraud, it is shaping and strengthening an Indigenous Council of Government throughout the country. The Workers’ Meeting in the SME on January 24 has the challenge of finding and creating the ways to emulate the CIG, moving towards the formation also of a Council of Government of the working class and the people. It is the historical importance of this meeting to lay the foundations for an alliance between the indigenous peoples represented by the CIG and the unions and workers’ organizations that include militant trade unions like the SME and those grouped in the NCT (Nueva Central de Trabajadores) , but also from other sectors and movements in struggle such as the ANUEE (Asamblea Nacional de Usuarios de Energía Eléctrica - National Assembly of Users of Electric Power) and organizations such as the OPT (Organización Política del Pueblo y los Trabajadores - Workers’ and Peoples’ Political Organization). [4]

The worker, peasant and indigenous alliance in the perspective of an alliance between the Indigenous Council of Government and a future Workers’ Council of Government Council will necessarily be reflected in the combination of the demands of the indigenous peoples’ struggle that oppose the capitalist devastation of their communities and peoples and the demands of workers in struggle against neoliberal structural reforms, violence and militarization of the country, femicide and the other plagues of the current phase of capitalism. This programmatic enrichment can be made at this Meeting where experiences are shared on each side.

January 24, 2018

Footnotes

[1] Marichuy is the surname of the indigenous activist María de Jesús Patricio Martínez. The CIG was set up in October 2016 as a representative body based on the seven Zapatista principles of good government. See http://www.internationalviewpoint.o... .

[2] “Yo soy 132” was a student movement which appeared in 2012, demanding democratisation of the media, the defence of freedom of expression and the right to information, as well as a democratic transformation of the Mexican political system. The Ayotzinapa 43 were the students abducted and killed by police in Iguala, in September 2014. The slogan “Fue el Estado” indicates state responsibility for the killings. Enrique Peña Nieto has been president of Mexico since December 2012.

[3] Andrés Manuel López Obrador, (AMLO) is the leader of the Morena party, founded in 2011.

[4] The SME is an electricians’ trade union with 66,000 members which led a long struggle against the privatisation of electricity, leading to the formation of the ANUEE. The OPT was founded in August 2011 as a proletarian alternative to the crisis of the political parties, at the initiative of the leaders of the SME and several radical left groups including the PRT.